A conventional upright washing machine has a door which opens and closes the entrance to water and laundry tubs on the top of a main body of the washing machine. The door of the washing machine is opened and closed frequently according to various occasions, that is, when a bundle of clothes are either put into or taken out of the laundry tub for washing or for drying, when a detergent for cleaning clothing and an agent for rinsing are put into the tub, when laundry is added to the articles that are being washed in the laundry tub, or when you try to properly counteract any out-of-balance condition created by the laundry.
The door of the conventional washing machine is opened and closed by hand, which causes much trouble. Moreover, in recent years, household electric appliances of large capacity are becoming very popular among customers. In line with such a tendency, washing machines are also designed to be of large capacity, and doors used for those washing machines become big and heavy as well. Accordingly, it is difficult for users to open or close the door of the washing machine with the hand.
In order to overcome the above-described problem, there has been proposed a washing machine with an apparatus for automatically opening and closing its door by simple keyboard input.
In addition, the conventional washing machine has a lamp in itself so that laundry can be easily put into or taken out of its laundry tub in the dark. Accordingly, even if such a washing machine with the lamp is located in a room which is not brightly lit up, you can see the amount of the laundry put in the laundry tub of the washing machine very well when you open the door of the washing machine.
According to the conventional art, however, a lamp operating portion and the automatic door opening/closing apparatus are individually provided to the washing machine. Even if the automatic door opening/closing apparatus and the lamp are integrally installed within the washing machine, the lamp is designed to be turned on or off according to door opening or closing. In other words, a motor for the automatic door opening/closing apparatus (door motor) and the lamp operating portion operate from a single power supply, and power is applied to both of them at a time so that the lamp is turned on or off, simultaneously with the operation of the door motor. This creates overload with respect to the single power supply, and causes temporary malfunction in two loads.
When taking the above into consideration, it is preferable that the door motor and lamp are constructed to go into action in sequence.